FATTENING WALL STREET — Mike Whitney reports on the rapid metamorphosis of new Fed Chair Janet Yallin into a lackey for the bankers, bond traders and brokers. The New Religious Wars Over the Environment: Joyce Nelson charts the looming confrontation between the Catholic Church and fundamentalists over climate change, extinction and GMOs; A People’s History of Mexican Constitutions: Andrew Smolski on the 200 year-long struggle of Mexico’s peasants, indigenous people and workers to secure legal rights and liberties; Spying on Black Writers: Ron Jacobs uncovers the FBI’s 50 year-long obsession with black poets, novelists and essayists; O Elephant! JoAnn Wypijewski on the grim history of circus elephants; PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on birds and climate change; Chris Floyd on the US as nuclear bully; Seth Sandronsky on Van Jones’s blind spot; Lee Ballinger on musicians and the State Department; and Kim Nicolini on the films of JC Chandor.

The end of Muammar Gaddafi’s 41 years in power appears to be in hand as the rebels close in on Tripoli, though it is not clear if the old regime will collapse without a fight for the capital. It still has the men and the material to draw out the conflict, but its su...

Tripoli.
The large gold framed portrait of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi that adorned the wall behind the reception desk of my hotel since it opened many years ago has vanished. Also gone are the 72 green flags that flew on the white poles have also been remov...

Tripoli
Since this observer is not privy to any secrets around here and would not share them if he were, it’s fair enough to engage in frank discussions with former colleagues in Congress and new cyber acquaintances who work on the Hill.
I got an ...

Tripoli.
Truth be told, some foreign observers, and certainly this one, having been based in Tripoli the past nearly eight weeks, have not taken very seriously occasional media predictions that Tripoli might soon be invaded by “NATO rebels” —...

Last March, a coalition of Western powers and Arab autocracies banded together to sponsor what was billed as a short little military operation to “protect Libyan civilians”.
On March 17, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 which gave that particular...

Rebels, from the Wars of the Roses up to the present civil war in Libya, usually try to postpone splitting into factions and murdering each other until after they have seized power and are in full control. However deep their divisions, they keep them secret from the outsi...

Tripoli, Libya.
The quality of life continues to degrade in certain areas of western Libya while public anxiety noticeably rises over missing Libyan children as the first week of an unusually stressful Ramadan passes.
The shortage of gasoline has be...

By now, it seems as if everybody and his brother has joined the debt-ceiling imbroglio in Washington, perhaps the strangest homespun drama of our time. It’s as if Washington’s leading political players, aided and abetted by the media’s love of the horser...

Tripoli.
On July 30, the day before this 97.5 per cent Muslim country began the holy month of Ramadan, NATO spokesperson Roland Lavoie has been lamely attempting to explain to the press at the Rexis Hotel and internationally, why NATO was forced to bom...

General David Petraeus, newly installed Director of the CIA, is now the most influencial figure on issues at the top of the American foreign agenda. He has unrivaled prestige in Washington and among the public at large, he has close allies in the Pentagon and White House,...

In keeping with the British Government’s well-established record of comical ineptitude in dealing with Libya, foreign secretary William Hague chose to recognize the rebel leaders in Benghazi as the legitimate government of the country at the very moment some of them...

The assassination of General Abdul Fatah Younis, Muammar Gaddafi’s interior minister who defected to the opposition in February, and news of fighting between rebel factions near their “capital” Benghazi, resulting in growing lawlessness in the rebel-held...

On July 9 I took part in a demonstration in front of the White House, the theme of which was “Stop Bombing Libya”. The last time I had taken part in a protest against US bombing of a foreign country, which the White House was selling as “humanitarian int...

The invasion was planned and the opportunity to execute it was highly propitious.
They say ‘time heals’ emotional wounds. If that is so why don’t I feel less enraged as the days go by since the outrageous invasion of Libya on ludicrous false prete...

Tripoli.
Entering Libya from Tunisia, the roughly 115 mile drive to Tripoli currently provides a fascinating if unsettling introduction to the current situation in Tripoli. By the time I arrived at the hotel my mouth tasted as if I h...

At a meeting between the UN Security Council and the African Union High Level Ad hoc Committee on Libya on June 15, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations gave the African Union’s stand on NATO’s invasion of Libya....

Vieux Port, St Raphael, France
At the end of May the British press was filled with stories headlined “Gaddafi to be told to stand down or face Apache attack.” As of this writing, the Apaches have attacked, but Gaddafi has not stood down....

NATO members, including Canada, are continuing their bombing campaign against Libya in a war that may just break the record for the casual breaking of international law, and lying about the motives for the war. There is no mandate to engage in “regime...

Last week I joined six Republican and three Democrat colleagues to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its illegal war against Libya. Now that more than 90 days have passed since the president began bombing Libya, no one can seriously claim...

In war, accounts of atrocities need to be treated with scepticism. Surveying a battlefield where he had once fought, the great Confederate general Stonewall Jackson turned to an aide and asked: "Did you ever think, sir, what an opportunity a battl...

The meticulous Harvard Law Review editors should be rolling over in their footnotes. The recidivist violations of constitutional and statutory requirements by their celebrated predecessor at that journal ? Barack Obama has reached Orwellian dimensions in th...

The arguments made to “legalize” war, torture, warrantless spying, and other crimes by John Yoo and Jay Bybee and their gang are looking rational, well-reasoned, and impeccably researched in comparison with Obama’s latest “legalizati...

Good news for investors whose investments have gone south comes from unlikely sources. Libya is one of them and Goldman Sachs another. The news is certain to convince many that there is no better manager of their money than that fabled institution that wa...

In light of the brutal death and destruction wrought on Libya by the relentless US/NATO bombardment, the professed claims of “humanitarian concerns” as grounds for intervention can readily be dismissed as a blatantly specious imperialist ploy in...

The alleged purpose of UN Security Council resolution 1973, passed on March 17, was to seek to protect Libyan civilians from violent attacks by both sides. In NATO’s eager hands, cosseted by uncritical Western press coverage, it has rapidly mutated in...

Prof. Honderich took part in a panel discussion on terrorism and war at the 2011 thinking-persons festival in Hay-on-Wye, that second festival, the one for philosophy and music. Called How The Light Gets In, it is the invention of Hilary Lawson and a further contribution ...

Tripoli.
How many times must a parent bury a child?
In the case of Muammar Qaddafi it’s not only twice: once for his daughter,
murdered by the United States bombing on his home in 1986, and again on 30...